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The formation of the Earth was almost identical to the formation of the other three terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, and Mars) until a very unique event happened.

An unusually large object estimated to be roughly the size Mars is now struck Earth just after Earth had first formed a solid crust, at just exactly the right place and angle to gouge out a large piece of Earth's mantle, completely remelt both Earth and the object, and fling most of the ejected mantle material into an orbit around Earth where when it cooled the ejected mantle material became Earth's Moon. Had this impact been even slightly different it could have either totally shattered Earth creating another Asteroid Belt or the large object could have simply glanced off leaving Earth nearly as it was.

The formation of the four terrestrial planets and the four gas giant planets was very different, influenced largely by the variation in intensity of sunlight in the early solar system.

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